Soft Boys 4: Nextdoorland

His solo career had turned out less lucrative than ever, but at least Robyn Hitchcock had the distraction of reissuing Underwater Moonlight (everybody’s favorite Soft Boys album) on the trendy Matador label. In a move as unexpected as it was obvious, the band reunited for a tour, which led to a new album.

Nextdoorland turned out to be one of his better albums in a while, certainly helped by a consistent, reliable unit throughout the album, as opposed to the pick-and-choose sequencing of his Warners output. There’s little of the chaos so prevalent on their albums, instead relying on tight playing, excellent guitar interplay, and Robyn’s choice of words. It would also appear that all of the songs were written or at least developed with the Soft Boys in mind.

“I Love Lucy” is perhaps one of the better illustrations of their strengths, being mostly instrumental. “Pulse Of My Heart”, “Mr. Kennedy” and “Unprotected Love” all teem with hooks, while “My Mind Is Connected To Your Dreams” recalls some of the moodier Egyptians tracks from the ‘90s.

“Sudden Town” has a riff that flirts with “Kingdom Of Love”, breaking out of its straitjacket in time for the chorus. “Strings” goes for over six minutes, mostly due to a few psychedelic trips here and there. “Japanese Captain” tries a little too hard to be odd, so “La Cherité” is a better use of evasive meaning. “Lions And Tigers” is kinda silly, but it works.

As good as Nextdoorland is, something’s still missing. Over the years, what had once seemed to come so easily to Robyn was now seeming more contrived. Plus, spending 25 years in the business not likely too careful with his throat was starting to result in a rasp.

But at least he was making music, and letting it be heard. As was becoming common for him, another handful of songs was made available via direct mail order. The aptly titled Side Three offered another twenty minutes of catchy tunes, before disappearing. Of the six tracks, one is a remake of “Each Of Her Silver Wands” from an earlier offhand release, and “Evil Guy” had been a legendary Egyptians outtake. It’s out of print, but new and used copies abound on the e-tail sites.

The Soft Boys Nextdoorland (2002)—3
The Soft Boys Side Three (2002)—3

Soft Boys 3: 1976-81

Being the champions of the unknown that they were, Rykodisc gamely attempted to further the reputation of the Soft Boys by reissuing A Can of Bees and Underwater Moonlight on slightly expanded but still definitive CD. (They also did the same for Invisible Hits, a posthumous collection of singles and alternates from 1983.)

A bolder step was the compilation of a double-disc anthology of the band. 1976-81 kindly presented the band’s history in chronological order, alternating tracks from singles, EPs and LPs with unreleased material. Easily half of the contents would have been new to collectors, making it both essential and repetitive.

For newcomers, however, it provides an excellent view of the band’s trajectory, akin to being shot out of a cannon into a brick wall. The earliest tracks show their debt to the organized chaos of Captain Beefheart, before more melodic things like “I Want To Be An Anglepoise Lamp” emerge. What truly sets them apart are the live recordings, where they took on such unlikely covers as “Heartbreak Hotel” as filtered through John Cale and Lou Reed’s “Caroline Says”. “We Like Bananas” is an old vaudeville tune just made for Robyn Hitchcock, while their acoustic takes on “That’s Where Your Heartaches Begin” and “Book Of Love” are hilarious.

Most of the second disc is given over to selections from the albums, with appropriate alternate takes slotted in here and there (including both versions of “Have A Heart Betty (I’m Not Fireproof)”, which is just fun to type). More live songs fill up that disc, including covers of Syd Barrett’s “Gigolo Aunt” and the Velvet Underground’s “Train Round The Bend”, bringing us right up to the moment where Robyn went solo.

It really is a well put-together set, and of course, it’s out of print. As many of the tracks are only available here, the curious will have to find used copies. Or borrow it from a friend.

The Soft Boys 1976-81 (1993)—3½
Current CD availability: none

Soft Boys 2: Underwater Moonlight

Underwater Moonlight is one of those albums that gets called a lost classic, mostly because it barely sold when it was first released. But there were enough record store geeks who championed it, and these were likely the same ones who enabled Robyn Hitchcock to maintain a solo career in the first place. For the rest of us, who got into his career from the other end, it’s an essential purchase.

The main thing about it is that the concentration seems to be more on “straight” rock, leaving the absurdities of earlier Soft Boys records to the lyrics and titles. For starters, “I Wanna Destroy You” is a powerful opener, all major chords and harmonies and fantastic bass until the disembodied ending. “Kingdom Of Love” is a fairly standard boogie song, and one that would resurface again and again throughout the following decade. There’s even a sitar on “Positive Vibrations”, which predicts the psychedelic throwback phase of the mid-‘80s. “I Got The Hots” alternates between a creepy verse and a much more tuneful other section, relying on wacky rhymes. His singing has become very confident on “Insanely Jealous”, even when he’s trying to keep up with all the words he’s written himself.

“Tonight” isn’t much on the surface, but it’s still a toe-tapper, right up to the phlanged effect on the fade. The “angular” sound returns on “You’ll Have To Go Sideways”, a speedy exercise in riffing over an odd meter with conflicting voices in the keyboards. Followed by “Old Pervert”, the side has taken a distinctively twisted turn. Luckily, “Queen Of Eyes” sounds just like the Byrds. The title track borrows its melody from “First There Was A Mountain”, and is about either a couple of statues who go for a swim, or two human lovers that drown themselves. Whatever it is, it gives Robyn a chance to talk about fish again.

Its charms aren’t immediately apparent, but of the two official Soft Boys albums, Underwater Moonlight is closest to the Egyptians sound, and not because it involves the same people. As with everything else Robyn’s done, it has been reissued, with different add-ons, every decade or so, making it more widely available to people who wanted to hear what all the music snobs were going on about. Rykodisc added eight bonus tracks, and then Matador added a ninth, plus a disc of rehearsals called …And How It Got There. The current Yep Roc edition pares it back to the original LP sequence, but also offers a download access to all 30 tracks that had appeared in previous reissues.

The Soft Boys Underwater Moonlight (1980)—3½
1992 Rykodisc reissue: same as 1980, plus 8 extra tracks
2001 …And How It Got There edition: same as 1992, plus 18 extra tracks

Soft Boys 1: A Can Of Bees

Unless you were really, really hip in the late ‘70s, chances are you hadn’t heard of The Soft Boys until much later, in the context of being Robyn Hitchcock’s first band, or maybe as the precursor to Katrina & The Waves. At any rate, as their catalog has been reissued for the third time, a summary is overdue.

Not exactly punk and not yet power-pop, they recorded a few singles and EPs before finally completing their first album, and A Can Of Bees comes across as something of an assault. “Give It To The Soft Boys” and “The Pigworker” are based on slightly atonal riffs and Robyn’s highly unmelodic vocalizing; here’s where the influence of Captain Beefheart is most apparent. “Human Music” is a little more tuneful, beginning with a nice guitar motif and continuing under some Byrdsian harmonies. “Leppo And The Jooves” sounds even more like the Robyn people knew in the ‘80s, if only because the song was featured on Gotta Let This Hen Out! The stilted rhythms of “The Rat’s Prayer”, unsurprisingly, recall Syd Barrett.

Mostly instrumental, “Do The Chisel” dares you to dance, as does, in its own way, “Return Of The Sacred Crab”. “Sandra’s Having Her Brain Out” manages to straddle about five different sections while insulting feminists. Oddly, three live tracks end the album: a pretty straight cover of John Lennon’s “Cold Turkey”, the frenetic “School Dinner Blues”, and the even faster “Wading Through A Ventilator”.

When taken within context, A Can Of Bees fits neatly inside the Robyn Hitchcock story, but it certainly startles. Since its first appearance the contents have been shuffled a bit, but now that it’s available again on the Yep Roc label, the original 11-song sequence comes with a download link for nine additional songs from the same period.

The Soft Boys A Can Of Bees (1979)—3
1992 Rykodisc reissue: same as 1979, plus 6 extra tracks